


One day we will meet, and not on the field of battle.

by Keenir



Category: Norse Mythology, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for the Thor II trailer, they're both real
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-10
Updated: 2013-08-10
Packaged: 2017-12-23 00:38:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/919931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keenir/pseuds/Keenir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sif gets to meet her opposite number.</p><p> </p><p>(or: One night, Sif goes into the Vault to see Loki.  ...and finds them both there.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	One day we will meet, and not on the field of battle.

'Loki' is not the luckiest of names in Asgard. Sif knows that, and knows the sort of pride that Loki takes in that fact.

The guards let her pass into the Vault without objection. She is known to them, and she has no way to secret anyone out, not even someone as talented at magic as Loki.

Since the founding of the City that is Asgard, and the making of its Wall, there have been three whose names echo through time - and Sif knows hers is the third, most recent one of them. One Loki died out in the wastes of Utgard; there is no agreement over how he died. Another was said to be the finest friend of the newly-crowned king Odin Allfather, and ended his days imprisoned underground. 'May I be as wise as Forseti' tends to be paired with 'May I avoid the fates of once-Loki.' The oldest tales told of bravery. The somewhat younger tales spoke of treachery.

Down the stairs and past the doors so gilded and heavy and ponderous that they seem somehow to be older than the Vault, which was here before the City.

"Sif," Loki says, and anyone else would smile that she is recognized after so long away, after all that he has undergone at the hands of the humans, of aliens, of forces even she would rather not know of. But her joy reaches her eyes, even if her mouth is unmoved. "You missed me," he says, but she can hear a question in there.

 _Unless that is the manner in which he now speaks,_ Sif granted that a possibility, however narrow, however small.

"Did you mourn?" he asks her, and yes, that was a question.

"Your absence. Not your death," Sif says. _Like the little rituals you had - those you thought I did not notice - when I was away on conflicts where magic was against the rules of warfare._ "I never lost confidence."

"Always pleased to hear that," Loki said.

"And you?" she asks him, curious as to his answer, if any, however roundabout.

"I mourned for myself. There were times I longed for death, even knowing it would be denied me. I knew there would be no rescue, no escape except through a gauntlet of pain and captivity. And," spreading his arms out, "here I am."

"Perhaps more similar than assumed," rumbled a deep voice that was both heard and felt.

"Not now, old man," Loki replied. "I get so few pleasant visitors, I would not have you scaring her off."

 _And who does Loki think could scare_ me _off?_ Sif wondered, turning around.

The design of the Vault was simple, if hard to see for one simple reason - nothing could be seen out the corner of the eye. Unless you were aiming for it, looking for it, both sides looked like solid unbroken wall. Now that Sif was looking, she could see what was in the next space over and across the corridor - a large man, almost Jotunn in height, flat against a stone table as something dripped from the darkness overhead and - and into a bowl held by a woman two or three heads taller than Sif herself, and Sif knew herself to not be a short woman.

Sif blinked, her mind refusing to allow what she was seeing to be real.

 _And the tales told of..._ is all Sif can think, finding herself looking upon the living selves of that tale. Every muscle in her body is demanding, tugging, screaming that she abase herself, get lower, make herself as small as possible, to try to be unnoticed.

Sif doesn't move.

"Impressive, aren't they?" Loki the younger, her Loki, asks her, and oh what Sif would have given to see _his_ reaction when he had it. She highly doubts that laughter figured into it, and disbelieves that her Loki would have been quick with his tongue either.

One of the first things Sif and the Warriors Three and the princes had learned when they had lessons in weapons and combat, was that Asgardians (and the denizens of most Realms, for that matter) did not grow old and die. No, war was the only way to come to an end, that or being eaten. _Even so...that this be them..._ "Are you...?" Sif asks.

"If you think I am Sigyn, you are correct," says the one holding the bowl.

"Then that..."

"Is Loki," says hers.

Sif tried to shake herself out of it - _You have faced down Jotunns, those creatures from - No, those are the creatures from the tales told by our vets. These two are from a bygone time. Aside from Odin himself, who else on Asgard remembers this couple is still here?_ She felt slightly treasonous for wondering if Odin remembered them after this long.

"So much to discuss, not knowing where to begin," the ancient Loki says, dry humor in a voice less like parchment, more the worn-down leather used for field surgeries.

"Have you questions for us?" Sigyn asks them. When no answer is forthcoming, "Your Loki has had a few himself for us. My favorite was one which could only concern you, good girl."

Sif's blood rushed, thundering in her ears and elsewhere, as she spun around, faster this time, and glared at Loki, while her mind tried to determine what could possibly have been asked that concerned her and would become a favorite of the legendary wife of the legendary prisoner. Sif's eyes asked the question in a language her Loki was fluent in.

What he said was, "I simply made an inquiry as to if there was a way to prevent _you_ from ever meeting the same fate as _she_."

"And that is a thing which even I could not answer," spoke the older Loki. "Nor could Forseti at his peaks, I would wager."

"Which is why it was my favorite," Sigyn confided to Sif. "We get only one visitor, a serving girl, and she asks such easy questions on the rare moment she visits."

Sif isn't sure what to say to that. She isn't sure how a serving girl gets past the guards at the main door, much less manages to open the door at the bottom of the steps.

Sigyn thinks, _At first, we felt umbrage we did not speak, at Odin's silly attempt at a disguise. After a ways into time, we grew to enjoy the familiarity of the deception which Odin knows does not fool us._

"Go, please," the elder Loki entreats Sigyn. "Enjoy what time to speak with the girl. It will give me time with my namesake; we may discuss things which... Your ears are still tender, my heart, my hands."

"My ears are callused, though you have not screamed for ere long time."

"Enjoy the company and conversation of another."

That tempts her, but still she stays steady.

"Take a break."

"I am your hands, you admit as much yourself," Sigyn said, unmistakable pride in her voice. "I need be here."

"Go. For me, if not for yourself."

"Loki -"

"Your opposite number. How often does the chance arise?" he asks her, and Sif can make out the common threads of humor that link the elder and younger namesake.

Sigyn hesitates still, looking over at Sif, then back to her husband - who, having tried words of honey, golden reassurances, falls back on a threat: "If you do not go, you will hate. And I will punish that hate by twisting into the path of more venom than you can catch, faithful wife." And then honey again as it drips from one word: "Please."

At last a nod. She empties the bowl one more time, then sets it down on him so it catches everything that drops, angles it so it will empty itself pouring onto the floor.

Even so, even with all the precautions and the care, a drop, a very large drop, manages to land on the elder Loki. And he screams a noise that stops her completely. The scream isn't so much a scream as what's left of it - more a rusty hinge than anything else. But even that is stifled, swallowed back in an effort - a very visible effort - to keep Sigyn from doing more than stopping where she hears him.

She closes her eyes and, bearing a look of complete betrayal, places her hand against the wall - which opens for her. Even so, its at least a minute before she can bring herself to even take that first step out from where she has lived for so long.

Said the elder Loki, "Savor the sun. I would so enjoy hearing your words of how it felt, when you return, if you wish to. If you wish to remain away, I understand completely."

Sigyn's grip on the wall tightens into fists, and she looks one step away from hitting something, the wall itself in all likelyhood. But the moment passes, a very long moment, before her fists unclench and she steps onto the corridor floor, where Sif stands to greet her.

As the two of them walk, Sigyn's pace slow to go from unsteady to accustomed to walking more than a few steps, Sif notices the acid burns and scorch marks on Sigyn's neck and shoulders, as well as a dot on the back of her head. _The body has needs,_ Sif reasoned. _And if that is your world..._

As they walk back through the doors and up the stairs and out past the guards - who look rather puzzled, but trust Sif and so ask no questions and sound no alerts - all the while Sigyn keeps looking back, as if fearful that the moment she stops checking there, it will cease to exist, taking its contents - her beloved - with it. She looks back more frequently when the elder Loki's breathing is audible, strained as though from laboring and bleeding. It brings to Sif's mind that image the old beliefs would spring into her mind, of how the valkryies would come for wounded men on battlefields, but also for women faring poorly from childbirth. Not even stepping under the light of Yggdrasil itself eases the worry or fear, and it takes Sif seconds more to realize that Sigyn in all likelyhood has not even _noticed_ they are outside now.

"Look up," Sif says.

A pronounced wince accompanied by ducking down her head and sheltering her eyes with one hand.

Sif recalls the dripping ceiling of that containment.

But Sigyn draws upon a reserve of strength enough to take away her hand and straighten herself and look up as was requested. "More than I remember," she says, bemused. And her smile is slow to form, all those muscles forced to call back across the ages for the distant memory of how to have a genuine smile not tempered with pain or concern or distress. "Thank you, Sif."

She figures she can happily, gladly put up with a lapse in protocol and decorum and exchange, from one of the few people in Asgard who are even less socially-inclined than herself. "You're welcome," Sif says. Time passes, tick tick tick, and Sif can't help but watch how Sigyn (still with eyes on Yggdrasil) keeps wringing those hands in an effort to not let her hands pantomime holding and moving a bowl. _After I leave a battlefield or the training sands after having been on either and in constant motion for a day at least, I can be a little rougher than intended with my Loki, not that he protests my body replaying those combat moves against him._ "Would you like to go back?" Sif asks her.

Sigyn blinks, and as the taller woman uncranes that neck to face her, blinking, Sif isn't sure if that was a response to her question or to being unaccustomed to this level of ambient light.

"When was the last time you weren't in there?" Sif asks, curious.

"Is Odin still king of Asgard?" Sigyn asks.

"He is, yes."

"Who is queen?"

Had Sif been drinking, it would have been a most unseemly sight, her reaction. _The Allmother was queen back when my parents were still children._ "Frigga."

"I do not know her," Sigyn says, and that tells Sif more than she wanted to know about just how long some have been prisoners in the Vault. "Can I go now?"

"Where will you go?" Sif asks, and already knows the question's answer, knows it because it is what she believes would be her own answer if their situations were reversed: _back to Loki. To my Loki._

"I once had a home. Did you know that? It was not stately or shining or ornate in any way - but it was mine. I so enjoyed that house, as did Loki when he was near." Sigyn sighed, gave an ancient look to Sif. "I would go there now, if it still stood. But I know it cannot be there - the Tenth Realm ceased to exist centuries before my Loki was sealed away." Making a face that Sif recognized from her own mirror, Sigyn said "I thank you for your time, Sif. And I would not ever object to future talks with you."

"I would enjoy that," Sif says, meaning every drop of her words. _Those who understand Loki as well as I do, they are few and far between. Even if the stories are true and she is no warrior. Even if her Loki is a Wind Giant who has not felt the sun in three generations' time, she understands me and what I think._

"Walk with me, please," Sigyn requests, and together they return to the depths of the Vault...just in time to meet Thor on the stairs, the younger Loki gripped firmly to prevent escape.

Sif supposes it is a minor miracle that he is not leashed, locked, or gagged this time. "Thor?" she asks.

But Thor has frozen in place, his feet rooted to the spot as he looks up at Sigyn.

Sif cannot help but see, not Asgard's mighty warrior, not one of Midgard's greatest heroes, but a small boy seeing a figure from the mists of where legend meet history. _Was it like this when his friends met him for the first time?_ she cannot help but wonder, and a smile crosses her lips. And she sees her Loki seeing her smile, and that prompts amusement on his face as well.

"Your friend asked you a question," Sigyn says, snapping Thor out of it.

"The Allfather has asked me to bring Loki to the Bifrost. Battle has been joined, and we need Loki's skill against this foe."

"You need Loki?" Sif asks, and she knows - just _knows_ \- that Sigyn is enjoying the same thought.

"We do."

And before Thor can add 'and yourself', Sif asks him, "Which one?"

Loki laughs.


End file.
